SpaceX Begins Trading in Historic IPO

The Wall Street Journal called Friday "SpaceX Day," and the big moment just arrived: Shares of Elon Musk's rocket company began trading under the ticker SPCX on the Nasdaq exchange in the biggest initial public offering in history, reports CNBC. The shares started at $150, above the company's $135 IPO price, giving the company a value of just under $2 trillion, the AP reports. They quickly jumped toward $170. Elon Musk—now thought to be the world's first trillionaire, at least on paper—earlier rang the opening bell remotely from Texas while SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell did the honors in person in New York.

On Thursday, SpaceX said in an SEC filing that it was raising about $75 billion by selling 555.6 million shares at $135 each, valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion—enough to rank it seventh among US firms and above Tesla. The question now is where the price ends up once the hoopla dies down. "I think it's a coin flip, whether this ends up up or down," Ben Narasin of Tenacity Venture Capital tells the Journal. Still, lots of SpaceX employees just became instant millionaires, and longtime investors also saw a massive payday.